On February 24th, 1991 the ground war by the Allied forces began. While Allied aircraft watched for a counterattack, thousands of Marines poured into Kuwait almost unopposed. After six weeks of relentless bombing, half the Iraqi conscripts on the front line had already deserted. The Iraqi collapse was so sudden the Allied commanders did not yet realize how their success could undermine the larger plan. American Commander Norman Schwarzkopf had miscalculated, but had there been evidence weeks earlier of what might really happen when the Allies attacked the Iraqis? Had there been lessons to learn from the battle of Khafji? In Iraqi cities in the south, close to the Allied front lines, Hussein’s rule had collapsed. Ordinary people, mostly Shia Muslims, took up arms against a regime they hated. Kurds in the north also took up arms. During the war, President George H.W. Bush had called again and again for the Iraqis to overthrow Hussein. The ceasefire talks between Iraq and the Allies were held in coalition-occupied Iraq, near the town of Safwan. The Iraqi leadership wanted a deal that would return their captured territory and give them the freedom to crush the rebellions. The Allies had fought a war for Kuwait and its oil and against the tyranny of Hussein, but the promises of a greater democracy in Kuwait would come to little. The war had changed the balance of power in the Middle East and ignited the peace process between Israel and its Arab neighbors.